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Fort Lewis College volleyball loses in 5 after taking 2-0 lead vs. Mountaineers
Herald Sports Writer
Photo by STEVE LEWIS/Herald
Fort Lewis college junior outside hitter Chelsea Flaming bumps the ball in a five-set loss to
Western State on Tuesday night at Whalen Gymnasium. Flaming led all hitters with 23 kills as the Skyhawks took a 2-0 lead early, only to lose the next three sets and fall to 7-11 in the RMAC.
Aaland
The Fort Lewis College volleyball team hammered visiting Western State 25-11 in a shockingly fast first set, running their high-speed offense at breakneck pace.
"I've been coaching a long time, and I have not been part of a comeback like this ... I'm just so proud that we came out and played. We could have rolled over."
- Katie Moskowitz, Western State head coach
The Skyhawks kept the offensive accelerator to the floor in the second set, a 25-19 victory in which they never trailed.
Then, they took the NCAA-mandated 8-minute "halftime" break. And the Skyhawks never recovered.
Western State, putting together an unlikely comeback on the road, rallied to win three consecutive sets and claim the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference victory 3-2 (11-25, 19-25, 25-23, 25-21, 15-12) on Tuesday night at Whalen Gymnasium.
"We've had trouble coming out in the third game and finishing all year," Fort Lewis head coach Shelly Aaland said. "That happened again (Tuesday night)." She said the Skyhawks' early offense was effective because of the rapid pace of play, which led to an eye-popping .600 hitting percentage in the first game.
"You don't like the first game to go quite like that," Aaland said of the large margin of victory, which included a stifling 9-1 run by the Skyhawks midway through. "That ... usually comes back to get you." But not in the second game.
The Skyhawks, starting with a bump kill by defensive wizard Iris Frye, kept the Mountaineers on the defensive. Taylor Hilberry hit a pair of kills out of the middle.
Chelsea Flaming, the former Durango High School standout, elevated for a half-dozen crushing kills. And she blasted an ace serve.
Jessica Wilson and Hilberry teamed for a block at game point, and FLC led 2-0.
"We came back out in the third game, and we couldn't pass the ball," Aaland said. "We couldn't pass in the third or fourth games." And they started making errors, she said.
"The little things ... we didn't do them well enough," Aaland said.
Still, the Skyhawks moved into position to take the match 3-0 when they scrapped to a 16-10 lead in the third set. Wilson, another decorated DHS alum, contributed two kills and a dig that led to a big kill from Hilberry (off a set from Adriana Saiz).
But the 7-2 run by the Skyhawks ended on a booming kill by Jamie Hamsa of Western State off a set from freshman Rachel Weakland.
Fort Lewis answered the Mountaineers' run with two more booming kills from Wilson to give the Skyhawks a 21-19 lead.
Cecelia Vollmer had a kill, and setter Weakland's well-placed soft kill tied the game 21-all.
Another Vollmer kill and a Fort Lewis attacking error pushed Western State ahead 23-22.
An FLC hitting error gave Western State game point at 24-22.
But Flaming delayed the end with a loud kill off a Western State overpass to cut the score to 24-23.
Western State won the game on a kill by Hamsa that rolled along the tape at the top of the net before falling onto the Fort Lewis side.
With their newfound momentum and rising confidence, the Mountaineers used an early 7-1 run to control the fourth set and gain an eventual 25-21 win.
The Mountaineers trailed by a single point early in the fifth and deciding game before finishing the 15-12 victory on a trio of kills from Lindsay Huson.
"That first game was the worst we've played all season," Western State coach Katie Moskowitz said. "It was ... pure ugly. I think we got a little panicked." But, she said, that terrible first game led to the Mountaineers' most dramatic comeback of the season.
"I've been coaching a long time," she said, "and I have not been part of a comeback like this." She said Western State had nothing to play for with the playoffs out of reach.
But, she said, the Mountaineers responded with a stretch of their best volleyball of the year.
"I'm just so proud that we came out and played (in the third game). We could have rolled over. But we didn't," Moskowitz said.
"That's the first time (at the end) that we looked tired," Aaland said after the Skyhawks fell to 9-17 overall, 7-11 in the RMAC.
"We just didn't have the fire that they did," she said.
Flaming led all hitters with 23 kills. Wilson added 13; Hilberry had 12.
Saiz finished with 49 assists.
Western State improved to 7-19 overall, 7-11 in conference, led by 12 kills from Vollmer and 12 from Courtnee Pedone. Fort Lewis will return to Whalen Gymnasium for the final regular-season match at 7 p.m. Friday against Mesa State College.
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